Bambi | Page 7

in luxury. You could write and he could figure."
"I don't see that it is any business of ours what you do, but I certainly
won't let you support me."
"Do you really mean it isn't your business?"
"Why should it be?"
"Well, if I am your wife, and his daughter, some people would think

that it was distantly related to your business."
"Why New York? Why not here?"
"In this town they think I am crazy now. But if I burst out as a
professional dancer----Wow!"
"That's so. It's a mean little town, but it's quiet. That's why I stay. It's
quiet."
"You wouldn't mind my being away, if I went to New York, would
you?"
"Oh, no. I'd be busy."
"That's good. I really think you are almost ideal."
"Ideal?"
"As a husband. They are usually so exacting and interfering."
"I've not decided yet to be your husband."
"But you are it."
"Suppose you should fall in love with somebody else?"
"I'm much more apt to fall in love with you."
"Heaven forbid!" he exclaimed, and came to her side quickly. "Bambi,
promise me that no matter what happens you will not do that. You will
not fall in love with me."
She looked at him a minute, and then laughed contagiously.
"I am serious about this. My work is everything to me. Nothing matters
but just that, and it might be a dreadful interruption if you fell in love
with me."

"I don't see why, unless you fell in love with me."
"No danger of that," said he, and at her laugh turned to her again. "If
ever you see any signs of my being such a fool as that, you warn me,
will you?"
"And what will you do then?"
"I'll run away. I will go to the ends of the earth. That particular
madness is death to creative genius."
"All right. I'll warn you."
"I've got to begin to polish my first draft to-day, so I'll go upstairs and
get at it."
"Will you be gone two days this trip?"
He turned to smile at her.
"Some people would think you were eccentric," he said.
"They might," she responded.
"I am almost sane when I polish," he laughed. "It's only when I create
that I am crazy."
"It's all right then, is it? We go on?"
"Go on?"
"Being married?"
"Well, I have no objection, if you insist, but you'd better think over
what I told you. I think you have made a mistake; and you shall never
support me."
"I never think over my mistakes," said Bambi. "I just live up to them."

"I agree with your father that you risk a good deal."
"Risks are exciting."
"If you don't like it, you can divorce me the next time I am in a work fit.
I'll never know it, so it will be painless."
"Jarvis, that's unfair."
He came back quickly.
"That was intended for humour," he explained.
"I so diagnosed it," she flashed back at him.
He looked down at her diminutive figure with its well-shaped, patrician
head, its sensitive mouth, its wide-set, shining eyes.
"Star-shine," he smiled.
She poked him with a sharp "What?"
"You don't think I ought to--to--kiss you, possibly, do you?"
"Mercy, no!"
"Good! I was afraid you might expect something of me."
"Oh, no. Think what you have done for the girl," she quoted, and he
heard her laugh down the hall and out into the garden. He took a step as
if to follow her. Then, with a shake of his shoulders, he climbed the
stairs to his new workshop with a smile on his lips.

III
The Professor was working in his garden. It was one of his few
relaxations, and he took it as seriously as a problem. He had great
success with flowers, owing to what he called his system. He was

methodical as a machine in everything he did, so the plants were fed
with the regularity of hospital patients, and flourished accordingly.
To-day he was in pursuit of slugs. He followed up one row, and down
the next, slaying with the ruthlessness of fate.
The general effect of his garden was rather striking. He laid out each
bed in the shape of an arithmetical figure. The pansy beds were in
figure eights, the nasturtiums were pruned and ordered into stubby
figure ones, while the asters and fall flowers ranged from fours to
twenties.
The Professor carried his arithmetical sense to extremes. He insisted
that figures had personality, just as people have, and it was a favourite
method of his to nickname his friends and pupils according to a
numeral. He was watching the death-throes of a slug, with scientific
indifference, as his son-in-law approached him, carrying a
wide-brimmed hat.
"Professor Parkhurst, your daughter desires you